Idiosyncratic takes on the Uncommon and the Unusual. From UFOs to paranormal events to conspiracy theories to anything offbeat that intrigues me. (C) Copyright Ray X.

Monday, February 26, 2018

A Ufoologist And His Money Soon Parted

Investigative journalist Jaime Maussan and friend

In
the field of ufology there is a body of non-evidence regarding alien visitors
to this world.Actually it’s more
appropriate to refer to bodies of non-evidence.

Believers
in ET visitors are so desperate for proof that they will believe in any alleged
alien corpse that seemingly fell out of a flying saucer’s garbage chute.And when such proof turns out to be bunk they
say that the claim of a hoax is a hoax.(Does that mean that a claim that a hoax is a hoax is itself another
hoax?)

The
late great editor/writer Jim Moseley, perpetrator of the zine Saucer Smear,
referred to the extreme believers as ufoologists.

When
researching tales of dead alien bodies the name Jaime Maussan pops up.Maussan is a Mexican investigative journalist
who critics say is too obsessed with UFOs and aliens.Others call him a serial fraudster.Along the way he’s repeatedly become involved
in sensational media hoo-ha over the latest ET smoking gun.

In
the spring of 2013 someone came across a strange old Kodachrome slide.He was amazed when the image was projected to
see what appeared to be a dead alien inside a glass case.Maybe this was one of the space aliens
purportedly seen in the area of Roswell, New Mexico after a saucer purportedly
crashed there in 1947.

Kodak
experts could find no signs of trickery with the slide.They also said it was produced some time
between 1945 and 1950, meaning it could have been used to photograph a Roswell
crash corpse.

Enter
Jaime Maussan, the P.T. Barnum of ufoology.He arranged the Be Witness event held in Mexico City to reveal to the
world the Roswell slides.Around 7,000
suckers – oops, I mean attendees – paid up to $86 a head to be part of the
spectacle.

But
the placard blew the whole deal.

Attached
to the glass case seen in the slide was what appeared to be a sign but the
lettering was too indistinct to read.Using digital technology someone was able to decipher the blurry
print.The truth was revealed: the
placard stated the body was the mummified remains of a two year old boy.

Later
the mummy of the Native American boy was traced to a museum in Colorado where
the slide was taken.

OK,
if you can’t trust photos then actual physical evidence should do the
trick.That’s the approach Jaime Mussen
took – repeatedly.

Back
in 2013 there was the case of the demon fairy “corpse” linked to a description
in Revelations.(It’s not the first time
that ufoology overlapped the Bible and religion with aliens.) A tiny dark brown body with wings, slender
elongated arms and pointy ears was presented to the world.

Two
researchers who discovered the body believed fallen angels were related to UFOS
and that the demon fairy heralded the End Times.Reportedly Maussan paid $10,000 to gain
possession of the body.

The
demon fairy had been stored in liquid.But once it was exposed to the air it fell apart, revealing it was
composed of glue, wood and plastic that had been held together by its skin, the
work of a taxidermist.

Those
taxidermists can be sneaky fellows.Take
the tale from 2007 of the Metepec creature, a small strange being found caught
in a rat trap that was killed by frightened Mexican farmhands.Maussan forked over $23,000 for ownership.

The
body did indeed look extraterrestrial, suggestive of those gray aliens who
wield anal probes.But Maussan kinda
overpaid for the body: a taxidermist admitted it was made from a mammalian
corpse reported to be either be a squirrel monkey or a Buffy-tufted
marmoset.He skinned the animal and
removed some musculature to create its eerie appearance.The taxidermist claimed he never promoted the
corpse as anything really unusual: Maussan made that assumption.

Maussan hasn’t given
up, his most recent proof being the pre-Columbian “mummified aliens” from
Nazca, Peru that generated a lot of buzz last year.This time he seemed to have a winner.Actual proof.

And also another
money-maker.After teasing online
viewers with some video of the "alien mummies" the website gaia.com
had anyone sucked into the story to see more behind a paywall, a subscription
costing about $10 a month.

After all how can you
explain a humanoid body with an elongated skull and only six fingers and
toes?To top it all off the fingers and
toes are extremely long.Gotta be an
alien, right?

Not so fast.The elongated skull could be the result of
head binding when the individual was a baby, a practice that has been carried
out for centuries among certain civilizations.

But what about those
freaky digits, three per limb, much longer than a those of a normal human?One explanation is trickery through mummy
mutilation.

With each hand cut
off the thumb and little finger.With
the feet cut off the big and little toes.Now you cut between the remaining fingers all the way to the wrist. You could even add extra finger bones for more length. Presto change-o!.Freaky digits.Perform a similar procedure with the
remaining toes.

The "alien mummies" were examined, DNA testing proving they were the
bodies of earthlings, not aliens.Mummification experts issued an angry report, “The Fraud of
Extraterrestrial Mummies,” that stated it was all a hoax involving the remains
being altered to create alien features.

So
there’s money to be made – and lost – in claims of ET corpses.It’s all a matter of trust.

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About Me

February 1994. I launch my paper zine, Ray X X-Rayer, a publication devoted to offbeat topiX. And as the years pass by I end up as a blogger, still sharing my views on the Uncommon and the Unusual: UFOs, weird books, fringe thinkers, and anything else that compels me to write.